One of my lasting memories of the 1992 Guild was being asked to play and sing with the band from Central Methodist, Lune Street in the South Ribble Churches procession. In those days there were separate churches processions for north and south of the river, so I had the opportunity to be in both!. My links with Central were via Gillian who had worshipped there until we were married and whose family were, and still are, stalwart members. It still came as a surprise when Gillian returned from a Fulwood 2012 Guild planning meeting and told me she had nominated me to put a band together for the churches procession Guild 2012. Once the dust had settled and I realised what a great opportunity this would be I started thinking what kind of music should we use and hunted through my bank of CD’s and music. I knew it was there somewhere, a Graham Kendrick suite of songs specifically written for proclaiming the gospel ‘on the streets’.

All I needed was a band – who could I get to join in? A few phone calls and general grovelling amongst friends and the band of 7 was formed: Stephen Grice on keyboard; Leighton Holyfield on bass; Johnny Sykes on drums; Ben Ferris, Myrtle Poxon and Judith Gallagher on vocals, and me. Seven was a good number for two reasons, firstly we would be travelling on an 18 foot trailer accompanying 2 crosses, so room was at a premium, and secondly the colour theme of our floats was around the colours of the rainbow – of which there are seven. We could all wear a different coloured T-shirt – wow!! Other key members of the team were going to be Nick and Chris Penrith in the tractor unit pulling the float and Martin Sykes as ‘roadie’. Big thanks to Nick at this stage for his commitment to the preparation of the float and to Steve McGill for his carpentry skills.

Rehearsals at Church were fun: Myrtle kept forgetting to turn up and Leighton was studying for the most part in Birmingham!. We didn’t have a full band together until the actual morning of the procession! Nevertheless, a few copies of the CDs and sheet music together with a general enthusiasm to make a decent sound (plus a few silent prayers), brought us to the morning fairly well prepared.

We all gathered early at church on the morning of 3 September; we had been blessed with clear blue skies and sunshine. The practical members of the group, under the close watch of Veronica Frost, proceeded to sort out the flowered cross which looked spectacular. What space was left was filled with a generator, amplifiers, speakers, microphones and, last but not least, us! We regrouped on Moor Park Avenue and had a sound check - not bad for starters but room for improvement! Fortunately we had plenty of time to mingle with the other local church folk on adjacent floats before we had a serious run-through of the songs. The plan was that we would sing our songs and then the Zumba dancers, under the leadership of Josie Harrison, would entertain the crowds. We’d planned that twice through this should get us round the route in roughly 2 hours. There was a buzz of excitement as we left Moor Park and proceeded to the rendezvous with the walkers on Moor Lane. We kept singing and practising en route to keep the locals entertained but also fine tune our ‘performance’. We saw many familiar faces of friends from other churches who, like us, were frantically doing last minute preparations. What was so special for me was the all the Ferris family were walking and involved in the procession, doing one job or another.

The procession itself was so uplifting. The crowds were waving and singing along and there were many shouts of encouragement from friends and colleagues on the route. As a band we enjoyed the opportunity to sing and playing up beat Christians songs and, hopefully, relay the message. It was great to see our new Minister Malcolm, and his wife Christine, walking up front – we hope he liked what he saw on his third day in the Circuit! The Zumba dancers also went down a treat and were probably relieved to see the finish back at Moor Lane again and the warm welcome we received from Stephen Poxon and Paul Davis. I would hope that the 3 floats which made up Fulwood Methodists contribution to the Guild Procession 2012 relayed to the Preston public the love we share and what a special part Jesus plays in our lives. Thanks to all who had any part to play on such a great day - I’ve started planning the music already for 2032!!